Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Brazil MOH: Epi Week 10 Microcephaly Report

#11,155

The Brazilian MOH hasn't posted an English language version yet, but thanks to Greg Folker's tweet, we have a link to a PDF version (albeit, in Portuguese). Some translated snippets (and my comparison to last week) follow.

I - MICROCEFALIAS SURVEILLANCE AND / OR CHANGES OF THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM (CNS)

1. General information

Until
March 12, 2016 (SE 10), 6,398 cases were reported, according to the
surveillance protocol settings (newborn, stillbirth, abortion or fetus).
Of
these, 4,201 (65.7%) cases remain under investigation and 2,197 cases
were investigated and classified, with 854 confirmed for microcephaly
and / or abnormal CNS suggestive of congenital infection and 1,343
dropped (Table 1).

Although the number of cases under investigation decreased by30 this week (to 4201), the overall number of suspected cases increased by 240.

Last week 109 microcephaly cases were confirmed, and 161 previously suspected cases were discarded, which effectively removed 270 cases from the investigational pool.

This was a much larger weekly clearance rate than we've seen before. The report also notes: